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PAX East 2011: Saturday

Two-thirds of PAX East has come and gone before my eyes.

During my almost constant travels around the interior of the convention center, I saw many intriguing sights on Saturday that were just asking to be photographed and shared with the world.

I’d like to present my Saturday PAX East photo blog to you, which contains over 100 images.

Hit the jump to start the show!

While most attendees had to wait in the queue room, folks with media badges were allowed an hour of exclusive access to the show floor. Luckily, I fell into the latter group.

The first thing I went to was the demo for Portal 2. Unfortunately, it was hands-off, but the footage did show off the single player mode and introduced a new character voiced by J.K. Simmons. You may remember him as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies.

The Brink portion of Bethesda’s booth.

No photos were allowed inside of the secluded room leading to the Darkness 2 demo. You were allowed to play the game for a good 20-30 minutes in a special demo sequence that involved Jackie Estacado being tortured by a new villain who wants the power of the Darkness for himself.

The game would flash between that ordeal and a failed assassination at an Italian restaurant attempted by a rival mob group. So far, the game is more of the same with more refined combat mechanics, which I certainly do not mind. You can expect to see the game this fall.

A Combee interviewing Teddy from Persona 4? That’s the kind of thing you only see at PAX!

A portion of the line housing the Nintendo fans eager to try out the 3DS.

The official PAX East merchandise booth.

A worker at the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game exhibit.

A rear view of art on the Behemoth’s booth.

One of several Splicers who journeyed from Rapture to Boston.

COG soldiers from Gears of War.

The red ninja Ermac from Mortal Kombat.

Someone let their Umbreon run around the expo.

Soul Calibur’s Xianghua.

The Fez booth and their neat line of shirts.

Someone should have played the Imperial March when these guys hit the stage.

Looks like you will be able to score one of these plushies even if you couldn’t make it to Boston.

A kilted attendee plays Dance Central on a stage.

Gotham must be close to Boston.

On Saturday, the BioShock Infinite statue served as a nice photo op for fans.

Carl Swangee, star of Gabe and Tycho’s other comic, Automata.

Another photo op, this one promoting the Showtime TV series The Borgias.

Bless you, child.

Two models representing Galaxy 4 Gamers.

A vendor selling Little Big Planet 2 merchandise.

Customized Antec PC cases.

If you tried Dance Central at Microsoft’s Kinect area, you’d get a free shirt.

A raffle was held in the afternoon for several autographed Splicer masks.

Samus found herself a man from Azeroth.

The barker from Carnival Games.

Who doesn’t want to interview a male Chun-Li?

Saria and Sheik did an excellent job of the outfits.

An angled view of Nintendo’s exhibit. I soon headed in to try out some 3DS games.

Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D did keep me entertained, but I can see the novelty fading quickly if there isn’t a large character roster or number of selectable missions. I didn’t mind the first-person aiming, plus you can finally move and shoot at the same time. The Resident Evil series is finally getting with the times!

Super Street Fighter 4: 3D Edition seemed like a solid port with good controls. The intro movies for each fighter’s story were even included. You also had the option of fighting in an angled view to emphasize the 3D elements, which is the mode pictured in my photo.

My only complaint would be the animation quality. Even with the 3D effects disabled, the animation never seemed to hit the same frame rate as the console and arcade versions.

Kid Icarus was my favorite out of the 3DS titles I tried at PAX East. Fans of the original NES incarnation may not like the change, which is basically a blend of aerial fights like Space Harrier, Star Fox, Sin & Punishment, and land battles similar to the 3D Zelda games. Too bad it won’t be available at launch!

Dead Or Alive: Dimensions was another solid fighter for the 3DS. The main story mode features lots of cinemas that will hopefully clarify things in the bizarre DOA storyline. The 60 frames per second animation also looks gorgeous when you play the game without the 3D effects.

A female Moogle. Kupo!

Shepard brought Tali and Mordin with him on his assignment in PAX East.

Now that Aeris is dead, Cloud must choose between two Tifas.

As always, I loved the creepy plague mask.

A White Mage from Final Fantasy.

I’ll be honest and say that I have no idea who they were cosplaying, but they stood out from the crowd.

Faith from Mirror’s Edge and Alex Mercer Prototype.

Dr. Mario, Link, and Samus are prepared for Brawl!

Welcome to PAX East, Rogue… hope you survive the experience!

A couple in Angry Birds attire.

Soda Pop Miniatures traveled across the country to show off their games and figurines.

Soda Pop’s awesome line of Super Dungeon Explore miniatures.

Rock on, dudes!

Mad Moxxi was in attendance to observe all the gaming at PAX East.

Ubisoft reached their goal of 200 Call of Juarez: The Cartel pre-orders, so I scored a free $20 gift card.

Based on a quick round of Michael Jackson: The Experience for Kinect, I would have to say the gameplay and interface are still superior in Dance Central.

Two iBUYPOWER models who introduced themselves as Da Vinci and Socrates.

A great Portal cosplayer.

Catwoman and the goddamn Batman.

An Asari uses her biotic powers to fend off the photographers.

I believe she’s from Minecraft.

Are you frightened? Not nearly frightened enough!

A Scott Pilgram band takes to the Rock Band freeplay stage.

Another World of Warcraft cosplayer.

A strange ad spotted in the food court.

The world will look up and shout “SAVE US!” and Rorschach will look down and whisper “BOO!”

A lone knight from Castle Crashers set out to rescue the princesses.

You had to be an EA Gun Club member to see the new Battlefield.

ZALMAN and Zotac held raffles for great prizes, but caused quite a traffic jam.

RaSkulls merchandise sold at Halfbrick’s booth.

An X-Play signing featuring Morgan Webb.

A nice group of League of Legends cosplayers.

Tonberry knew better than to run with sharp objects.

NVIDIA used the world’s largest 3DTV to showcase F3AR.

Step aside, Ms. Pac-Man! Ms. Splosion Man is ready to be the next big thing.

I was impressed by this Dracula cosplayer. He would throw down his goblet of blood angrily while shouting about a miserable little pile of secrets.

Static Shock keeps PAX East safe from supervillains.

A guy and a girl wearing cool Bowser and Mario mascot suits.

A panel speaker dressed up in an interesting squid costume.

Shy Guy isn’t too bashful around this bearded Chun-Li.

Fran needs to find herself a Balthier.

I had no major complaints about Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon during my brief coop session with another attendee. The character designs seem a bit more masculine compared to the Japanese version, which I don’t mind. I just hope that the guns aren’t all as weak as whatever our primary weapon was. That thing sucked!

Magic: The Gathering had a nice setup at PAX East.

Bowser selected Oshawott as his starter Pokemon.

The Sprint and IGN gaming lounge.

OUENDAN!!!!

Several Child of Eden headsets were raffled off by the Frag Dolls.

Darth Maul shows the power of the dark side.

Morgana from League of Legends!

Part of a F3AR multiplayer competition for prizes.

A model posing by the Need for Speed Shift 2 exhibit.

Oh no, I startled the Witch while trying to get my CR0WND achievement!

A sign promoting a Super Bomberman tournament.

“Get along, little doggy!”

Fans leaving the exhibit hall as it closes for the night.

Dragon Age’s Morrigan.

A Big Daddy escorts a Little Sister to safety.

Morrigan has charmed Ryu.

While waiting for 1UP’s party to begin, I attended the Video Game Antiques Roadshow panel.

A sealed copy of the rare video game Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, which would be worth thousands of dollars if it weren’t a bootleg. My personal copy is open, but at least it’s legit!

After the panel, I walked to the Whiskey Priest for the 1UP party.

It actually wasn’t very hard to get VIP access. You just had to know who to talk to.

The bar was packed, but I had a good time hanging out with some old and new friends.

One of the other highlights of the evening was a demo of an iPad game called Word Fighter, by dev team Feel Every Yummy.

It basically combines Super Puzzle Fighter with Boggle, and was quite fun to play with friends.

Cool concept artwork for potential characters in Word Fighter, who would represent popular literary figures like Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie.

I returned to the expo to catch a shuttle, and saw that the exhibit hall was like a ghost town at night.

A wild dance party that broke out near one of the exits.

In the evening, the Handheld Lounge doubled as a place for guests to catch some sleep.

The Tabletop Freeplay Lounge was still very crowded at night.

It looks like these guys were crafting things out of spaghetti and marshmallows.

Once again, thanks for checking out my Saturday photo blog! I really should be off to the expo right now, as I’m running slightly later than planned. You can expect my final PAX East post in a few hours!